The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

Outside, the sun was beginning to climb and the cold air and dew that had marked the dawn were swiftly forgotten. The beggar nodded to Sthenelaus and Euryalus as they stared at him with disdain, then shuffled off in the direction of the camp walls. But as soon as he was out of sight of Diomedes’s hut, he placed less weight on his staff and quickened his pace, until a short while later he had climbed the slope and was approaching one of the gates. It was then he heard the sound he had been listening out for: a series of shouts and the clamour of men running some way behind him. He was barely feigning a shuffle now as he passed between the open gates and across the causeway, the guards keeping as far back from the shabby, foul-smelling old man as they could. But he had taken no more than a few paces on to the plain when a voice commanded him to stop. He turned to see Diomedes striding towards him, with Sthenelaus and Euryalus at each shoulder. A horse whip was in the king’s hand and his handsome face was creased with wrath.

‘Where is it?’ he demanded.

The beggar backed away, instinctively covering his head with his forearms.

‘Where’s what? I ain’t got nothing but what you gave me, m’lord.’

Diomedes reached across with a snarl and pulled open the beggar’s robes. The man fell unceremoniously onto his backside, causing a ripple of laughter from the gate guards. As he hit the ground, a silver goblet tumbled from his mess of rags and rolled in a semicircle towards Diomedes’s sandalled foot.

‘Call this nothing?’ he said, stooping to retrieve the cup.

‘You said to help meself,’ the beggar protested.

Diomedes raised his whip and brought it down smartly over the beggar’s shoulder, causing him to howl with pain. As the whip was raised for a second strike, the beggar threw his arms about Diomedes’s knees and pleaded for mercy.

‘A man shouldn’t beat his guests, not for nothing!’ he sobbed. ‘It’s an offence to the gods.’

‘And you’re an offence to me, thief,’ Diomedes replied, kicking him away and lashing his back as he scrambled through the long grass on his hands and knees.

His whimpering yelp was met by more laughter from the guards, who had now been joined by other men from the camp. As they watched, Diomedes whipped the beggar again, slashing open his filthy robes and leaving a red line on the brown skin beneath. Euryalus swung at the man’s stomach with his foot, knocking him onto his back, but as Sthenelaus stepped up to follow with a kick at the man’s head, Diomedes seized his arm and pulled him back.

‘Enough now. He’s learned his lesson.’

‘It’s you what needs to learn a lesson,’ the beggar groaned, clutching at his stomach. ‘Odysseus didn’t attack me when I was in his hut last night; he’s a proper host and knows the rules of xenia.’

Diomedes shook his head in disgust. ‘So you’re a liar as well as a thief. Odysseus retired to his hut last night with orders not to let anyone in. Agamemnon himself would have been turned away, so the chances of a beggar –’

‘But I was there,’ the beggar countered. ‘Fact is, he invited me in to help him with a little problem he was having. Something about finding a way into Troy to pinch a statue.’

‘The Palladium!’ Sthenelaus exclaimed.

Diomedes rebuked him with a warning glance, then turned to the beggar.

‘So you’ve overheard a bit of campfire gossip you think you can twist to your advantage. Perhaps you believe I’m a fool? Well, I’ll show you I’m not.’

He raised the whip again and the beggar threw his hands up before his face.

‘Agamemnon ordered you and Odysseus to steal the Palladium from the temple of Athena,’ he said quickly and urgently, though in a low voice that would not be heard by the gate guards. ‘It’s the last of the oracles given by Helenus, for the defeat of Troy.’

Diomedes’s arm froze above his head and he stared at the beggar incredulously.

‘How could you possibly know that?’

The beggar dropped his hands away from his face and sat up, the sluggishness now gone from his movements. There was a smile on his lips and a roguish gleam in his eyes.

‘Because I am Odysseus, of course.’

Euryalus snorted derisively.

‘Such arrogance in one so low. Do you think we’ve never set eyes on Odysseus before? Do you really think we’re going to believe you’re the king of Ithaca?’

‘This man’s asking for more than a whipping now,’ Sthenelaus hissed, his voice an angry whisper.

The beggar did not take his eyes from Diomedes.

‘Then how would a simple beggar know that Trechos was the first Argive to be killed in Pelops’s tomb, his neck snapped by Pelops’s skeleton as he removed the lid of the sarcophagus?’

‘No-one could know that unless they were there,’ Diomedes answered. He scrutinised the beggar closely for a moment, then smiled and offered him his hand. ‘By all the gods, Odysseus, even your own mother wouldn’t recognise you in that state.’

Odysseus refused his friend’s hand and, retrieving his stick, pulled himself slowly and stiffly to his feet.